Payments

Former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's personal political accounts were billed at least $188,000 by Washington law firms during his first year as chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to state and federal disclosure reports. Steele used state campaign funds to pay the law firms, but the specific purpose for most of the expenditures wasn't disclosed, in apparent violation of Maryland reporting guidelines. Some of the costs appear to involve activity that predated his tenure as Republican national chairman.

The share of Maryland homeowners newly behind on mortgage payments fell to the lowest level for March in four years — an important milestone because the state's new-delinquency figure is now better than its pre-crisis average. Just under 3 percent of Maryland homeowners with a mortgage were one payment behind at the end of March, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. The average was just over 3 percent between 1979, when the trade group's quarterly survey began, and 2006, before the mortgage and financial meltdowns that pushed the country into recession.

A high-ranking administrator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore received $410,000 in "questionable compensation payments" between 2007 and 2009, according to a state audit released Thursday. The payments, made in addition to the employee's salary, were not disclosed in budget reports to the General Assembly. The routine legislative audit also alleges that the university failed to submit the employee's contract for approval by the attorney general's office or for review by the university system's Board of Regents, as required by university guidelines.

A bill authorizing a tax subsidy for developers of a west side revitalization project is expected to be introduced during Monday's Baltimore City Council meeting. The subsidy, in the form of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, would go to Lexington Square Partners LLC, developers of the proposed $150 million Lexington Square apartment and retail project in an area known as the Superblock, which has long been targeted for renewal. The tax break is being proposed to help offset the cost of building a 296-unit apartment tower and a 650-space garage.

An influential state senator who has been the subject of a federal corruption probe used campaign contributions to pay $41,500 in apparent criminal defense legal fees over the past year, despite a 2008 Maryland attorney general's advice letter that bars such spending. Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat who heads the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, declined to answer questions about the payments to a prominent criminal defense attorney recorded on his annual campaign finance report.

Payments that help low-income Marylanders cover their electric bills will decrease next year, according to the operating plan for the state's Electric Universal Service program. The cuts are the result of declining revenues and increased demand for help, according to the plan proposed by state officials. The total funding for the program in fiscal year 2012 is about $56 million, down 30 percent from the previous year's budget of more than $81 million. The Maryland Public Service Commission was scheduled to review the plan at a hearing Wednesday afternoon.

Your article "Ex-dean of UMB law is audit target" (Feb. 20) about an audit that labeled payments to former law school dean Karen Rothenberg as "questionable" is an unfortunate example of the adage "no good deed goes unpunished ." The University of Maryland, Baltimore is being criticized for payments that secured great value and were clearly in its best interests. I have some first-hand knowledge about this matter and cannot be silent while others are unfairly criticized. Karen Rothenberg became dean of the University of Maryland School of Law in 2000.

Some child support payments in Maryland could soon go up - a change that state Human Resources Secretary Brenda Donald called "long overdue." For the first time in two decades, lawmakers are poised to revise the guidelines that courts use to set child support when divorcing or unmarried parents cannot agree on an amount. Those guidelines are based on household expense data from the 1970s, and although they accommodate rising incomes, advocates say they don't account for the escalating costs of raising a child.

I have to admire Martin Schreiber II for speaking out against the $410,000 payment to Karen Rothenberg, the former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law ("UM dean profited while students paid higher tuition," Readers respond, Feb. 23). Our grandson will graduate from the University of Richmond this spring and intends to attend law school. It is because of these outrageous payments to Ms. Rothenberg and others like her that students (as well as their parents) will be strapped for life paying off their student loans.

I find it amazing Larry Gibson, a member of the University of Maryland School of Law faculty, would approve of a payment of $410,000, made in a nefarious ways. Mr. Gibson, as a lawyer, is an officer of the court. How can he support Karen Rothenburg's $350,000 sabbatical payment when she didn't submit a plan or present a summation of that sabbatical as required within 15 days of her return? Another $60,000 paid to her is suspect. In 2008 the law school paid out $22.8 million in bonuses and other stipends.

The city's spending panel on Wednesday approved a $95,000 payout to a 90-year-old Baltimore woman who said she was roughed up by police. The sum was the result of a deal brokered between city lawyers and Venus Green, who alleged that her shoulder was separated during a scuffle with officers in her home on Poplar Grove Street in west Baltimore's Walbrook neighborhood in July 2009. According to documents the city's legal department filed with the Board of Estimates, three officers — Officer Kimberly Hanline, Det. Mark Spila and Sgt. Darryl T. Collins — entered Green's home against her objections while investigating a shooting at K&K Carryout, which is on Green's street.

Medicare is in desperate need of reform. Program costs are spiraling out of control and threatening to bankrupt the country. Here in Maryland, on average, each Medicare enrollee costs about $11,400 per year - that's a thousand dollars higher than the national average. Policymakers need to determine how to cut the program's costs. However, during that process, they need to be wary of compromising the care of beneficiaries. Some 800,000 Maryland seniors depend on Medicare to survive.

Every week for nearly a year, Sonnie Jones visited the Baltimore Police Academy to help put on a demonstration about how officers could better interact with residents in the city's crime-ridden neighborhoods. Though the demonstrations could become heated, officers often ended up thanking him for his perspective. But while his participation in the in-service training was always on a volunteer basis, he now wonders whether the city took advantage of his good will, in light of reports that guest speakers and non-law enforcement consultants were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to participate in other police training.

The founder of a payment processing firm in Rockville has filed a $300 million lawsuit against Baltimore-based private equity firm Sterling Partners, alleging that he was fraudulently induced into selling SecureNet Payment Systems. The lawsuit, filed last week in Baltimore City Circuit Court, alleges that SecureNet's founder and chief executive, Marc Potash, was duped into selling a 52 percent interest of his company to Sterling Partners for $56 million in September 2010. The lawsuit says the deal stipulated that Potash was to remain CEO and have day-to-day control but was wrongly fired a year later and was unable to collect millions in installment payments.

Baltimore City Community College received a $200,000 payment under "potentially questionable" circumstances from a company that was leasing it space, according to a state legislative audit released Wednesday. The matter has been referred to the attorney general's office for further review. The inquiry is the latest trouble for an institution that is battling to keep its accreditation and to build healthier relations between faculty and top administrators. The college says the $200,000 payment was a "contribution" from its landlord at the Maryland BioPark in West Baltimore.

The Maryland State Police have agreed to pay a $385,000 settlement to nine anti-abortion protesters arrested by Maryland State Troopers four years ago in Harford County. The 18 protesters, two of whom were minors, aged 14 and 17, at the time, were arrested and processed. While the minors were released, the others spent a night in the Harford County Detention Center. The state's Board of Public Works approved the payment Wednesday without discussion. The settlement means "the Maryland State Police cannot restrict speech, including speech employing images of aborted human babies, based on reactions of viewers or motorists to that speech," said Jack Ames, director of Defend Life, a Baltimore-based group.

Five Maryland-based banks that received bailout money missed dividend payments to the federal government in August, according to data compiled by SNL Financial. They were among 115 banks and thrifts across the country that did not make the August payments, said SNL Financial in a report released Friday. In Maryland, Patapsco Bancorp in Dundalk; Rising Sun Bancorp in Cecil County; Cecil Bancorp in Elkton; Harbor Bankshares in Baltimore, and Maryland Financial Bank in Towson deferred the most recent quarterly payments.

Karen H. Rothenberg, former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law, was the administrator who received $410,000 in what a state legislative audit called "questionable compensation payments," according to university payroll records. The routine audit of the University of Maryland, Baltimore says that in fiscal 2007, a high-ranking administrator received four payments totaling $350,000 for sabbatical time that was apparently never taken. The payments, approved by UMB President David Ramsay, came on top of a $360,000 salary.

The new St. John's Commons in Havre de Grace will be giving Harford County a payment in lieu of taxes. The Harford County Council approved the PILOT agreement with the 40-unit affordable housing project for seniors Tuesday, with minimal objections. St. John's Commons, on Stokes Street, would pay $175 per unit in lieu of taxes in the first year, $200 per unit the second year, $225 per unit the third year, $250 per unit the fourth year and $275 per unit the fifth year. In the sixth year, the amount will increase annually at 3 percent per unit, starting July 1, 2016.

Though just two Baltimore officers accused of taking kickbacks from Majestic Auto Repair are on trial this week in federal court, witnesses, prosecutors and attorneys have broadly described police behaving badly. One of the defendants falsified police reports to curry favor with a woman, and he let a drunken driver who had just crashed his car stumble into a liquor store, according to witnesses. Another officer, who previously pleaded guilty, falsely reported his personal vehicle stolen because he couldn't make the payments, according to one witness, while another officer used the Rosedale body shop for on-duty rendezvous with women, a defense attorney alleged.